Friday, November 16, 2012

OUSD votes to approve Peralta developer as Wayland flips

OUSD Trustee Mark Wayland, fresh off a November 6th election victory, again changed his vote on developing Orange Unified School District’s Peralta site property casting the deciding vote at the November 15, 2012 OUSD Board meeting to give Fairfield Properties LLC an Exclusive Negotiation Agreement (ENA). In this latest vote, the OUSD Board approved the ENA by a 4-2-1 vote. The vote comes two months after the September 14th OUSD Board meeting where Wayland, who faced a neighborhood activist in his November re-election bid who was against the development, provided the fourth vote to the original three Trustees who voted in July against the selection of Fairfield Residential as the exclusive developer for the former school site. Wayland's switch at that time won him admiration and ended the development as a factor in his re-election bid.

Voting this time with Orange Unified Trustees Tim Surridge, Rick Ledesma and John Ortega, Wayland’s new take on his vote at the November 15 meeting was now that the community is fully aware of the proposal, he would now support it. Trustees Kathy Moffat and Diane Singer continued their opposition to the development by voting against it. Trustee Dr. Alexia Deligianni, who has opposed the ENA with Fairfield, left the meeting early and was not present for the vote.

The group made up of neighborhood opponents of the project called Save Peralta Property have called a steering committee meeting in early December to discuss their options. On the heels of the September vote not to approve the ENA, the group had decalred a victory and began to take steps to become a neighborhood association.

The roller-coaster political twists over the property appear to be far from over as the process continues down a very long road that will include not only the developer, but now also the development process and politics of the City of Orange.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Another Peralta development vote set for Thursday

Exclusive Negotiating Agreement for
Fairfield Residential to develop
Peralta School Site is on OUSD Nov 15 Agenda

Less than two weeks after the November election that saw OUSD Trustee Mark Wayland and Dr. Alexia Deligianni reelected to the Orange Unified School Board, an “updated” Exclusive Negotiating Agreement (ENA) is back on the OUSD November 15th Agenda as Action Item 12 B ( page 5-24).

Three options are presented, one being an option of an “updated” ENA for Fairfield Residential.

Both Deligianni and Wayland faced opposition on the November 6th ballot. Both trustees voted against the development at the September 13, 2012 meeting in light of heavy neighborhood opposition and pposition from their opponets. While Deligianni had originally voted against Fairfield, Wayland had supported them. It was Wayland’s switch against the ENA that basically defeated the project and muted the proposed development as a campaign issue. In explaining his vote reversal, Wayland stated he was supporting the will of the majority of neighbors after “many sleepless nights”.

While Wayland and Deligianni were reelected, Orange voters did defeat Measure FF, the Ridgeline development in Orange Park Acres. That campaign was clearly focused on open space vs. development. In addition, Orange voters elected Tita Smith as Orange Mayor, and Mike Alvarez and Mark Murphy to the Orange City Council. All three had attended the Save Peralta Property group’s meetings during the campaign and were supported by that group and had concerns with the proposed Peralta development.

INSIDE the OUSD November 15, 2012 Agenda

Closed Session 4C- Discussion of surplus Silverado school siteInformation Item 12A- The OUSD Trustees are expected to direct staff to prepare a High School Facilities Assessment. This is seen as the opening of an attempt to pass a narrow high school facilities bond in OUSD, which twice since 2001 has rejected a district-wide band.

* The Godley Retirement Bonus presented here is an estimate of the amount in “bonus retirement” accrued since the Superintendent’s retirement on 6/30/08 using a 6% lifetime formula calculated here at $1210 a month since 8/08. The actual retirement plan the former OUSD Superintendent opted to take is not public information and the figures presented are only as an estimate of the taxpayer costs after the OUSD trustees voted against an amendment to exclude Godley from the retirement program. The on-going estimated figure is presented as a reminder to the community of the high cost in educational tax dollars the OUSD Board vote to allow the former Superintendent to participate in the 6% retirement incentive cost the OUSD education community in tax dollars. Godley retired from OUSD on June 30, 2008 after he worked for the school district for a little over five years.

For more information call the OUSD Superintendent’s office at 714-628-4040
For budgeting questions call Business Services at 714-628-4015.

ORANGE Unified Schools INSIDE is an independent news service of /O/N/N/Orange_NetNews@yahoo.com “Independent Local Insight”Ecast on the INTERNET COMMUNITY GROUP i/)))cgA 21st Century Communications System